Existing message notification systems do not solve the message correlation problem. Current systems are unable to perform a correlation between message reception and message delivery in multi-media channels and multi-event environments. As used herein, media and media channel refers to, but is not limited to, landline phone service, cellular phone service, short message service (SMS), email, blackberry service, text pager service, and the like.
Prior solutions either do not offer the correlation capability among multiple responses with multiple events or they are based upon service provider proprietary technology valid only within limited domains. There is no generic solution useful to identify and correlate messages with multiple responses from different recipients. Particularly, there are no solutions that are independent of service providers.
The prior solutions are valid within the private domains. There is no prior solution capable of providing a generic approach. For example, a service offered by one carrier may be able to identify and correlate a message with which event the message should belong when there is only one event happening at a time. When there are multiple received messages for different events from a user, the system may have problems identifying and correlating these multiple messages. When service is only for one-way communication this is not a serious problem from a carrier's perspective. When a reply is not necessary, there is no demand for such an identification and correlation of messages. However, a generic approach is important for a service provider that offers service through a carrier's infrastructure. It is not practical to rely on a carrier for providing the information a service provider needs, especially when messages will be sent through multiple carriers and through other service providers.
When a message notification system sends a notification message through different media channels to notify a recipient of an emergency event, the system should be capable of distinguishing the reply messages from recipients sent via the different media channels. The system should identify which received message is correlated with the message delivered by the system. This message correlation feature correlates the message delivered by the system with a reply message. The message correlation feature allows the notification system to keep track of the progress of the message delivery and ensures message confirmation. Existing systems are not able to provide message reception and message delivery correlation with respect to an event, especially, in the presence of multiple-event occurrences in heterogeneous media-channel environments. In addition, the present invention is independent of particular service providers, in contrast to current systems which are heavily dependent on service providers.
The present invention provides unique advantages over the existing solutions by being capable of identifying, authenticating, and correlating multiple messages with different recipients for multiple events with multiple media.